Disclaimer: Fairy Tail and all associated characters, locations, ect. are owned by Hiro Mashima.

Please read and review. I'm also still open for suggestions regarding last chapter's title.

Chapter 21 - Into the Night

Focus on Lucy

Lucy fell to her knees. It was hopeless. It's over... I can't win against him. Not without my Spirits or whip.

Her keys... her whip... gone. They lay just a few steps away. On any other day, picking them up would have been a matter of seconds... an effort not even worth mentioning. But with Jackal standing there, ready to pounce, those few steps might as well have been kilometres.

"What's up missy? Why did you stop? We were having so much fun." Jackal said, panting heavily. "Or could it be that you're just... one of those useless idiots,... who can't do any magic of their own... and rely solely on their tools?"

No! I won't give up. If I have to die, I choose to go down fighting. I won't spend my last moments cowering on the floor.

Lucy got back on her feet. Looking back and forth between her whip and keys, she weighted her options. Which one should she go after? Her Spirits would give her a better chance to actually defeat the Demon, but she had to pick out a key and summon one first, which required some time... time she most likely didn't have.

With her whip she could attack immediately, but it would inflict very little damage, unless she was able to hit the right spot. A whip was more of a tool than a weapon meant to inflict serious damage... A tool! That's it!

Having come up with a plan, she looked at the exact positions of her items and her enemy.

When Jackal noticed her determined expression he began to talk again. "Not done in yet? That's good. There's nothing as sweet as crushing an enemy's determination into pure despair." he said with a menacing grin and brought up his hands to attack.

Knowing that this was a long-shot at best, Lucy dashed away just in time to avoid the explosion that hit the spot she was just standing on a split-second before. Riding the shockwave to get faster, she jumped in the direction of her whip and against her expectations, Jackal was unable to follow her movements quickly enough to hit her. Probably because of all the wounds and exhaustion from his fight against Wendy the Celestial Spirit Mage thought. She angled her body so, that she came down exactly next to her whip and grabbed it while she rolled on. When she came back to her feet, she immediately lashed out directly at the Demon.

Thinking it was a direct attack, Jackal jumped aside to dodge the blow... which was exactly what Lucy had been hoping for. Her real target were her keys.

When she had rolled into position, she had made sure to have Jackal between her and her key-case intentionally. If he had seen her going for her keys, he would surely have stopped her from getting them, but now he was too busy with dodging the attack to notice that her whip had continued on past his previous position and that Lucy had already used her ability to control the whip's movements to wrap it around her key-case and fling it back to her.

By the time Jackal was back on the floor and had turned toward Lucy, her keys were already in her left hand again, but any thought of maybe winning this fight after all were short-lived.

Before she had a chance to even pick out a key or lash out with her whip again, an explosion smashed into her stomach and Lucy was flung back into the wall behind her. Her whip and keys fell from her numb hands as she crumbled to the floor.

All Lucy could do was lie there panting, as she tried to hold onto consciousness. While she struggled against the darkness that was trying to encroach from the sides of her vision, she felt herself lifted up by the arms.

Her vision was narrowed to a tiny spot on the floor and her ears were ringing. Someone was talking to her, but it was hard to make out any words over the ringing in her ears. After an indeterminate period of time, the ringing had lessened enough for her to make out the words. "Wake up princess, you wouldn't want to miss what's coming." someone said in a sing-song voice. "Wakey, wakey little sleepyhead." and similar lines penetrated through the haze in her head. Suddenly the mystery person screamed "Oi! Wake up already!" and slapped her cheek hard.

The world snapped back into focus and Lucy found herself sitting on the ground with her back to the wall. The lower parts of her shirt had been burned away, barely leaving enough cloth to cover her breasts. The skin over her stomach was badly burned to the point of cracking open and leaving many small bleeding wounds over the area. For some reason her hands were up above her head. When she lifted her gaze to see what the reason was, she came face to face with the grinning Jackal.

"Ah, that's better. Now we can finally begin with the main course." the Demon said happily. Lucy couldn't stop a frightened squeal from escaping her lips. He was kneeling in front and slightly to the side of her and had her arms pinned against the wall with one of his hands.

"Now, now... don't go pissing your panties just yet, when you don't even know what I have in mind for you." the Demon said in a faked caring tone. "I was playing with the thought of doing to you what I was doing to the feathered shrimp before... you know, slowly ripping out your heart." he explained unnecessarily to frighten her even more.

"But I thought it over. For taking away my toys in that town - and yes they were just toys and not hostages as you claimed - that really wouldn't cut it. It is a very painful way to die, but far too quick to satisfy my need for paying you back. No mere Human has the right to take away a Demon's toys!" he preached heatedly. As if the situation wasn't bad enough already, the Celestial Spirit Mage could see that many of Jackal's smaller wounds had already closed up and even his deep wounds were barely bleeding anymore. His breathing had also evened out already.

Lucy tried to struggle with all her strength, but from the way her body barely responded, she doubted she could move even if she wasn't pinned to the wall.

"I'll give your friends a work-over too a little later, but first I'll let you experience all the horrible things I'm going to do to them, so that you'll know just how much those things hurt." At his words, Jackal let the index-finger of his free hand grow into a long talon and impaled Lucy's left shoulder, making the Celestial Spirit Mage cry out in pain.

After he slowly pulled his talon out of the wound, he used Lucy's own blood to draw tribal patterns onto her face, which seemed to amuse him to no end. Several times when he ran out of 'colour' he poked his finger into the deep wound, causing a new bout of pain.

"Ah, that looks a lot nicer..." he said when he had finished "but now I better do something about this wound before you bleed out completely... you inferior beings are so fragile." and a moment later Lucy was again screaming in pain, as the Demon cauterized her wound with fire.

"You should really appreciate what I'm doing for you. Producing only so little heat and not compressing it into an explosion does require quite a bit of concentration for me." Jackal scolded her. "I was born to create explosions, not some measly little flames like your pink-haired buddy. Speaking of flames..." As he finished his sentence, he created a ball of flame above his palm. "I think fire is exactly the way to get back at both you and that flame-ass at the same time."

As the Demon waved the fireball in front of her face, Lucy again tried to struggle out of his grip, but to no avail. All she could do was wait for him to bring the fire down on her. Jackal played with her a bit longer, bringing the fire close to one part of her body, then another, but only to tease her and see her flinching and trying to squirm away. After a few minutes he tired of the game and pushed the fireball onto Lucy's left upper-arm and shoulder.

Lucy shrieked in pain as the flames began to eat into her skin and then Jackal withdrew them. He waited patiently for her cries to die down and then repeated the action two more times.

"If you beg me for forgiveness, I might stop playing with you and switch over to your friends right away. How about it?" Jackal asked.

Lucy's throat was already raw from the screaming and crying, but after a few tries she managed to stammer out a "Never... I'd rather... die... first..."

"Die? Oh no, I won't have any of that... not for a long time." the Demon replied in a menacing tone and brought the flames down on Lucy's right shoulder.

As Lucy shrieked in pain again, she thought for a moment that she heard someone call out her name, but then the thought melted away against the agony. Suddenly she felt the pressure on her wrists vanish and she crumbled to the ground.

She lay there panting heavily, with her face against the floor and it took some time before she could gather enough strength to turn to her side, so she could see what was going on. When she opened her eyes, she could barely believe what she saw.

For a moment Lucy thought she had truly gone insane from the torture. There at the entrance to the room stood Lisanna in her half-cat Take-Over and Jackal was... he was down on one knee and kissed the silver-haired girl's hand... well... paw.

Focus on Lisanna

Since hearing that first explosion, Lisanna had been running quite some time. The bare walls of the corridors and rooms made the echoing sounds seem to originate far closer than they actually were. In her run she had passed several closed doors, but the sounds of battle stayed ahead, so she just passed them by. With the cacophony of explosions coming from up ahead and her Take-Over transforming her feet into the quiet paws of a cat, there was no need to sneak, or even slow down... nobody would hear the soft tapping of her feet over all that noise.

A little while ago the explosions and sounds of battle had stopped to be replaced by something altogether more frightening. A woman was screaming in obvious pain. For a moment Lisanna feared that Erza was torturing Kyouka again, or that the Demon had been freed and was now hurting Erza, but quickly dismissed the thought. They were off in the other direction and a level below, so there was no way their voices could sound like up ahead. Besides this voice was too high to belong to either of them. But the voice still seemed somehow familiar.

After the woman's fourth agonized scream had echoed down the corridor, everything went quiet for some time.

While she was wondering if everything was already over and whether she would come too late to help, Lisanna finally arrived at the source of the commotion. The room was covered in scorch marks, small craters and blood splatters. Five unconscious Tartaros Troopers were strewn around the place. Against the far wall she could see a pair of figures. The bushy tail and the dog-like ears clearly marked one of them as a Demon. He knelt beside a clearly feminine person and had her arms pinned above her head with his right hand. Since he was leaning in front of the unknown woman, his head blocked Lisanna from seeing her face.

Before the Take-Over Mage's eyes, the Demon lit up a flame above his palm and pushed it into the woman's right shoulder, making her shriek in terrible pain. When she heard those agonized screams Lisanna froze. Outside in the corridor she hadn't been able to recognize it, but now that she was in the room, she realized that it was Lucy's voice. In her shock she cried her friend's name and immediately cursed herself for her lack of restrained. I should have immediately attacked the Demon, instead of getting his attention by shouting, she reprimanded herself.

The moment the word had left her lips, the Demon's head whirled around. When he saw her, he let go of Lucy's arms and the blonde Mage crumbled to the floor, unable to support her own weight. Lisanna tensed in preparation for an attack, but the odd look on the Demon's face gave her pause.

Was she imagining things or did he look... smitten?

Lisanna looked over at Lucy again to see if they might be able to fight as a team, but it didn't look good. Before she slid to the floor, terrible burns on both her shoulders and her belly were visible and now she wasn't even stirring. She just lay there with her eyes squeezed shut against the pain and desperately tried to get some air in her lungs again. Her face was bloody all over, but after carefully looking, the Take-Over Mage could see that she wasn't bleeding there. It looked like someone had been using blood to draw odd patterns onto her face.

While Lisanna's attention had been occupied by her fallen comrade, the Demon had stepped up right in front of her. To her immense surprise he went to a knee and actually kissed the Take-Over Mage's paw. What the hell is going on here? Is it because I look like one of them in my partial Cat Take-Over?

"Greetings my sweet kitten. I am Jackal, one of the Nine Demon Gates. May I ask your name?"

"I'm... I'm Lisanna." the Take-Over Mage stammered... too surprised to do anything other than answering honestly.

Behind the Demon the silver-haired Mage could see Lucy, as she struggled to her knees, picked up the key-case that had lain close to her and picked out one of them.

"Lisanna... a beautiful name for a beautiful Demon. Are you one of the new recruits that Kyouka brought in from our attached guilds?"

Lucy held the key out and her lips began to move. There were two small flashes of light, coalescing into a small, blue, floating creature each. A moment later the two merged and morphed into a copy of Lucy, in her Grand Magic Games uniform.

"Yes... that's right... " Lisanna stammered, deciding it'd be best to play along for now to buy Lucy as much time as she could, to either recover or execute whatever it was she had called Gemini out for. Surely together we have a better chance to defeat this monster.

"You seem a bit confused..." damn, he's onto me... I need to think of something the Take-Over Mage began to worry, but before she could come up with a course of action, Jackal continued. "Fresh out of the tank, right? Confusion or even temporary memory loss are quite common reactions to the tank, especially after demonification."

Lucy and the Celestial Spirit joined their hands and touched their fore-heads together.

"Even one of us Gates loses all his memory each time he's revived, can you believe it? Can't even remember his own name."

They began whispering an incantation. 'Ten wo hakari ten wo hiraki' luckily Jackal didn't react to it at all.

"That damn Tempesta... something must have gone wrong in his creation."

'Amaneku subete no hoshiboshi' something that look like a cross between clouds and flames, but in a bright and warm shade of yellow billowed up around Lucy and Gemini.

"But lets not talk about that looser, when there are so many fun things we could do." the Demon said and began to stroke Lisanna's side.

'Sono kagayaki wo motte' the yellow clouds began to move in a circle around the two, gathering speed.

"Oh would you shut up back there... I'll get back to you in a moment." he shouted over his shoulder, but his eyes never left the Take-Over Mage in front of him.

'Ware ni sugata wo shimese' a light appeared between the Mage and Spirit and began to grow in intensity.

Jackal ran his hand further down toward Lisanna's thigh and noticed the Fairy Tail Mark on it. He jumped back a step as if something had bitten his hand. "You... you are one of them?" he said. He actually seemed to be hurt by the realization for a moment, but quickly his expression transformed into one of rage.

'Tetorabiburosu yo' the light was shining like a miniature star now and their voices were gaining strength and volume.

Jackal seemed as if he was about to attack Lisanna, but then he finally noticed the bright light emanating from behind him and threw a look over his shoulder. When he saw what was going on there, he immediately whirled around and pointed both his hands at Lucy and Gemini. Before Lisanna could react, two explosions went off and obscured her view of her friend and the Spirit.

'Ware wa hoshiboshi no shihaisha'

To Lisanna's relief the explosions had been stopped by the cloud-flames that were now whirling around the Celestial pair like a small tornado. Even the flames left behind by the explosions were quickly dissipated. Jackal threw more and more explosions at them, but none could make it through the protective swirl of power. The Take-Over Mage could feel a tremendous concentration of magic power radiate from her comrade.

'Asupekuto wa kanzen nari'

When his direct attacks didn't work, Jackal switched his tactics and began to blow up the floor in front of Lucy and Gemini. At first Lisanna couldn't understand what he was trying to achieve by doing so, but then one shard of stone managed to slip through the cloud-flames and left a bleeding scratch on Lucy's cheek. The Celestial Spirit Mage seemed to be lost in some kind of trance and didn't even notice the wound.

'Araburu mon wo kaihōseyo' small pinpricks of multicoloured light began to fill the entire room.

Jackal let loose a barrage of explosions that shredded the floor all around the pair and showered them with shrapnel. Most of it was blown away by the yellow billowing whirlwind, but with the vast amount of stone-chips that Jackal was sending their way, they were soon covered in wounds from head to toe. Lucy's were bleeding red tears of blood while Gemini's were oozing little droplets that looked like liquid starlight. Neither of the two gave any outward reaction to their wounds.

'Zenten hachijūhassei' the lights grew bigger until they had swelled to about forty centimetres in diameter.

Lisanna threw herself at the Demon, but without any apparent effort he caught her by the throat and smashed her into the floor at his feet. While he held her down with one hand, he continued his attacks with the other. At least with just one hand his attack-frequency is halved, but is that really all I am good for? "If you can't be my equal partner, I'll make you into my pet instead!" he hissed at her.

Lucy and Gemini's eyes flew open and they loudly exclaimed 'Hikaru!' in a voice so full of authority that surely even the stars would have to follow the command. The whirls of energy had grown so strong and fast that none of the stone-fragments made it through anymore.

Seeing this, Jackal quickly threw Lisanna across the room to free both his hands without having her close enough to attack him and renewed his assault, but it was already too late. No matter now many pieces of broken stone he blew in the direction of the Celestial pair, nothing made it through anymore. The protective envelope of power had become too strong to pierce through.

Lisanna could hardly believe the amount of power that was radiating from Lucy and Gemini. Only twice before in her life had she felt magic stronger than this and that was from Acnologia when it attacked Tenroujima and the seven Dragons that had come through the Eclipse Gate. Even when Lucy had cast the same spell during the Grand Magic Games, it couldn't compare to the feeling it gave off now.

Lucy and Gemini lifted their arms to their sides, palms up. They leaned their heads back, their bellies and chests touching and uttered the last two words.

'URANO METORIA!'

The star-like lights began to shine brightly all around the room. It was as if they stood in the midst of the galaxy, cradled by all the constellations of the night-sky. A moment later, one star after the other began to shoot toward Jackal. When the first ball of light hit the Demon, it burst into an explosion so bright that Lisanna had to avert her eyes. Seeing all the stars swirl around the room, the Take-Over Mage was afraid of being hit too, but not a single one did. Even the ones that had been hovering behind her swivelled around her without ever touching her.

Each time Jackal was hit, a small shockwave buffeted Lisanna and as the lights hit the Demon in faster and faster succession, the back blow became so strong that it knocked the Take-Over Mage off her feet.

When the explosions, light and shockwaves had died down and everything had grown quiet, Lisanna looked over at Lucy. The Celestial Spirit Mage was on her hands and knees, panting heavily and Gemini was gone. Lisanna stood up and was just about to go over to her comrade when she heard a groaning to her right. Impossible! Nothing could have survived that barrage! Lisanna thought not really daring to look over.

Lucy's head lifted and looked in the direction of the noise. At first her expression was one of pure shock, but quickly it changed into one of unbridled hatred, made even more fearsome by the savage patterns drawn on her face. She tried to get up to her feet, but failed, so she opted for crawling. Lisanna risked a quick glance in the direction she was going and could see the very thing she was afraid of.

Jackal was still alive and conscious. At least he's unable to move... usually Fairy Tail Mages don't kill their opponents, but he's just too dangerous to leave alive. And he's not even Human to begin with. He's a Demon! While Lisanna was still trying to convince herself of the necessity of finishing the fallen Demon off and attempted to work up the resolve to deliver the killing stroke, she heard a disturbing sound from Lucy's direction. It sounded like the drawing of a bladed weapon from a sheath.

When she looked over at Lucy, she could see the Celestial Spirit Mage kneeling next to a fallen enemy soldier drawing a long dagger from a sheath on his belt.

She crawled over to the Demon, rose up on her knees and pulled her arm back to strike. Lisanna didn't know how long Lucy stayed like that, with the Dagger raised above her head, but it felt like forever. Her hand was shaking and her eyes were open as far as they could go.

Being unable to move didn't stop the Demon from talking. "I saw how you reacted when I killed those summoned things... you don't have it in you to intentionally kill~"

That was all Jackal was able to get out before Lucy let out a scream of rage and plunged the dagger into the Demon's chest. Jackal's back arched in pain and surprise for a moment and then he twitched a few more times, before going completely still. From her viewing angle it was hard to tell, but it looked like Lucy had precisely hit the Demon's heart.

Lucy just sat there, panting heavily and keep the dagger in a death-grip... until she pulled it out, lifted it about head-height and brought it back down into the Demon's chest. From the complete lack of reaction it was clear that Jackal was already dead, but Lucy seemed to be off in a world of her own. Again and again and again she stabbed the blade into the dead Demon's chest. Soon her right hand was covered in so much blood that the Fairy Tail mark on the back of her hand was no longer visible. It was such a shocking and heartbreaking thing to behold that Lisanna was frozen in place.

After staring in horror for some time, the Take-Over Mage was able to make her limbs move again and went over to Lucy. She slung her left arm around Lucy's chest and pulled her back, while she used her right hand to keep the blonde mage's right arm that still held the dagger in a death-grip, from stabbing down again. The Celestial Spirit Mage cried out in rage and struggled to free herself from the grip.

Lucy was hurt and exhausted to the point of having almost no strength left, but her hand was slippery from blood and sweat, making it hard for Lisanna to hold onto it.

"Lucy, please stop it!" Lisanna began to plead. "He's already dead, so please stop this." The blond mage didn't react at all to her words, so she continued to struggle. "It's me Lisanna, your friend. Please Lucy, you have to stop."

The Celestial Spirit Mage's struggles grew weaker and then she froze. Her eyes darted between the mutilated corpse and her blood-dripping right hand a few times and a moment later the dagger fell from her grip.

In the oppressive silence that had settled over the room, the clatter of the metal blade hitting the stone floor echoed loudly in their ears.

Letting out a panicked shriek, Lucy tried to scramble away from Jackal's corpse, but with Lisanna behind her, the pair fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs. After untangling herself, Lucy slid further back until she got about three meters of distance. And there she broke down.

She desperately scrapped her right hand on the floor again and again in a futile attempt to get the blood off, letting out short panicked shrieks the whole time.

Lisanna went after her and gathered her up in a tight embrace, pressing her friends head into her shoulder and stroked the back of her head. "Shh... it's alright now."

"I... I did this. I didn't just kill him... I... I mutilated his corpse... even after he was... already dead..." Lucy stammered in a shaken voice.

"Nobody is going to blame you for losing control after what he did. And he really deserved it." Lisanna tried to calm her hysteric friend with a soothing voice.

Beneath her hands Lisanna could feel Lucy's stiff body relax and then Lucy began to cry bitterly into her shoulder.

After words: Aw... poor Jackal. First he has his heart ripped out literally by Natsu, then metaphorically by having his love at first sight turn out to be an enemy and finally he's stabbed into it with a dagger... and mutilated... but he deserved it!

Anyway, regarding the power-level of Urano Metria and Lisanna not having felt its like before: I really didn't want to draw any comparisons with Gildarts' power output when he confronted Natsu with fear during the S-Class Trial, so I just (conveniently) assumed that Lisanna was already knocked out by Erza when that happened and thus didn't get to feel that release of power.

Here's Urano Metria's incantation in English, taken from the Fairy Tail Wikia:

Survey the Heavens, Open the Heavens
All the stars, far and wide
Show me thy appearance
With such shine
Oh Tetrabiblos
I am the ruler of the stars
Aspect become complete
Open thy malevolent gate
Oh 88 Stars of the heaven
Shine!
Urano Metria!

27.08.2017: Spelling corrections.